Murray man faces 30 sexual exploitation of children charges; was under investigation by three agencies

Published 8:22 pm Monday, April 1, 2019

A Chatsworth man has been indicted by a Murray County grand jury for 30 counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of possession of meth.

Lester Thomas Edwards Jr., 58, was originally charged in January by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office with two counts of computer pornography. Sheriff Gary Langford did not immediately return a telephone call on Monday and officials at the sheriff’s office said there is not an incident report.

“We do have a file opened on him from January,” District Attorney Bert Poston said in an email in response to questions about what led to the indictments. Poston did not provide more information on the case.

Suwanee Deputy Police Chief Cass Mooney said Edwards “chatted up” one of that department’s undercover officers who was posing as a teenage girl online on Jan. 8.

“We took only one warrant against him for computer exploitation of a child,” Mooney said. “When we started investigating him we figured out that two other jurisdictions were also actively investigating him, Murray County Sheriff’s Office and Buchanan police. So we assisted them (Murray County) on their search warrant.”

Edwards, who is being held in the Murray County jail without bond, is scheduled to be arraigned in Murray County Superior Court on Wednesday.